TLON BOOKS OPEN AGAIN

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TLÖN BOOKS CLOSED

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PREPARING THE EXHIBITION

Finally it is up for display in TLON BOOKS on the ground floor in the ELEPHANT AND CASTLE SHOPPING CENTRE. We have been working hard the last week with printing a book, making flyers, editing some soundfiles and getting all the things we need to put the exhibition up. Unfortunately we did not get all of the recordings on to the CD that is in the bookshop because of some technical difficulties we did not have time to solve. We will try to get it done this week to 'upgrade' the CD maybe on Friday. This is the cover of the book.



And this is one of the flyers.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

With this project we want to engage people to reflect on the upcoming regeneration plan in the area of Elephant and Castle, focusing on the shopping centre.
We have interviewed some of the owners the smaller shops in the shopping centre, what they think of the demolition plans and what will happen to their business. We have an upcoming exhibition of our photographs and the interviews in a bookshop, TLON BOOKS, located in the centre. We will make it possible for people to comment on the work and what has been said about the regeneration and we will try to replay on the comments by making new photos and interviews.

Presenting and Analysing the work

We will put our work up for display in the book shop. We will print around 15-20 photos, hopefully they will all fit in the space we have been offered. We will print the photos on book format paper and bind it as an addition to the photographs for people to have a closer look. It is also our plan to have a CD player with headphones on display in the bookshop as well, then people can listen to our intervies and look in the book at the same time. We will compose a text as an introduction to the photo book, but leave the printing of a book for later, because we want to continue the work for a while. We have been offered to display our work for about two months so we will try to update the work (starting after christmas) along the way. After reading the essay about the public art project I was thinking (since it points out that a lot of the art availible in public never asks the audiences what they think) we can try to get feedback on the exhibition and answer to it by renewing and updating our work. This can be done by having a book for comments, or a box and a notepad availible in the bookshop. That would not be too time consuming either. I think our problem all along with this project have been that we have had too many ideas and have not been able do decide on what to do. Now we are focused on a certain space with the intention of documenting it and letting people have their say about the regeneration. So far we have been in control of the work, we have chosen what to do and what to display. It might be a good idea to let the start of the exhibition be the start of a further interaction, and let go of the control. Let others decide and have opinions what we should do.
We have edited more of our interviews. Listen to them here.













After reading the essay ‘Personal views: Public Arts Research Project´ (2003), by Doreen Massey and Gillian Rose, I thought it would be interesting to investigate how their ideas and theories on public art apply to our project. It is a good way of analysing the actual intervention and what we aim to do with it. The essay and more about the project can be found on this site:

http://www.artpointtrust.org.uk/projects/details.asp?projects_id=11

Massey and Rose’s main idea in how to identifying what public art is (or if a piece of art can be called public) seems to be that the negotiation should not only be between the work of art and the audience, but also between the different social groups an audience may be made up of. (How will the negotiation between these groups take place?) What different groups an audience may be made up of, has of course to do with what is being exhibited and where you exhibit it. Our work will be put on display in a bookshop in the shopping centre we chose to do our project about.

Naturally we will attract people that have an interest in books, but we also hope to attract other people. We think a bookshop is quite a casual place where all sorts of people come and go. We do not seek for a certain type of audience, why a more or less public space (maybe less in a sense, since it carries some restrictions) suits the brief of our project (that of an intervention) better, than for example an art gallery. If displayed in an art gallery it would likely attract people more interested in art, than in what we find interesting in our project; the issues of the future demolition of the shopping centre. It is the shopping centre we want to put in focus at first hand, not the actual work.

The space we are going to use will exclude a group of people. The shopping centre has the notion of being a public space, people can come and go but during certain opening hours, if complying to the restrictions and regulations set up. When you enter any of the shops there is the possibility that you might have to follow an additional set of rules or codes of conduct. Even though these rules can be said to be applicable on anyone, without being discriminating, my point is that in theory some people are excluded. Some people do not approve of such rules and might feel offended by them. So those who do not want to follow the rules do not have access and are therefore excluded.

Here is an example:
http://www.into.org.uk/displayNews.cfm?NewsID=8325

What I need to continue writing on is what we would like to be negotiated in our project (what social groups will be the negotiators?) and how we will go about in the aim of achieving this...

Field of Hope

Me and Ala (as always) went to the shopping centre again. We talked to a man who had lots of critical opinions about the Southwark council and their promises to the shop owners. Listen to it here.



It is tempting to interview some of the politicians but I think we have to limit the amount of material to use for this project. We already have quite alot of different recordings which we have to edit, then we'll see what comes out, and if we need to add something. So this weeks plan is to deal with the sound recordings, find a style of editing, and just do it... which isn't always just doing it because of the technical difficulties we have faced. Ala has been struggling alot with the mini disc, can't say she would ever want to use it again...

We talked to the owner of the book store about displaying the photos of him, and maybe the other photos of the shopping centre as well, in his shop and he kindly offered us to use some of the space. So on Friday we are going to take more photos and maybe do one or two more interviews. Then we'll focus on the editing and the displayling of our work so far. We will print the photos and put them in a book, like an album, and put it for display in the shopping centre. Printing the book will be a later concern.

Here are some of the photos we took of the shopping centre.

Project Analysis Outline

It is time to start thinking about how to write the project analysis, just four weeks to go until the project is going to be finished. Here is the outline for our project analysis:

Essay 1500w

0. Introduction 100 words

1. Different ways of intervening, thoughts about them, how our ideas developed, refer to other projects, 325 words
Topic, photography, site specific intervention.

2.1 Our work, what we chose to do and why, 325 words
The project brief, Elephant and Castle, the proposal for our project.

2.2 Our work, how we did it, aestetic influences and inspirations (photographers, artists e.t.c.), 325 words
The work in the shopping centre, explain how we worked, interviewing people, collecting the sound, photographing uploading it to our blogs.

3. The interaction, the actual result, how did it turn out, what happened with the project? 325 words
Placing the work in the shopping centre.


4. Conclusion 100 words

Interviewing people in the shopping centre

Me and Ala went to the shopping centre in Elephant and Castle to interview and record peoples opinions about the shopping centre and its future and to take photographs. We spoke to people working and/or running buisness within the centre. It was very interesting to hear about how they are/might be affected of- ,and what they think of-, the demolition plans. It appears to be lots of diffrent issues surrounding this. We got some helpful tips about people to speak to and we will contact them to make appointments for more interviews. Our tutor Paula and fellow students Patrick and Aviv went to see the manager of the shopping centre last week to see if there is a chance for our group to use a space in the centre to display our work. I think the manager is having a look at it, and he suggested we use the shops to exhibit our work, which seems like a very nice idea! We still have a lot of work to do (four weeks to go) and there are many ways to display our work that we still have to consider. If we will exhibit the work in the centre we have to think of a way to display the sound recodings. I still think we should do the slide show, maybe there is a way of displaying that in the centre as well? Printing a book of our work,the photographs along with the recorded opinions as text, would work nicely as a documentation of the shopping centre if, or when, it will dissapear (I write if because some people we interviewed don't think the regeneration plans will come true). Ala is working hard with getting the recordings she did, from a minidisc we borrowed at school, to the computer, and getting them on to the blogs, at this stage unedited. The sound blog we were going to use to upload didn't work so she had to start a my music space account. It seems like it is working now! The recordings uploaded is the first ones Ala recorded on her mp3. Listen to them on Alas blog or Yourelephanstory.
Here are some of the photos:

Strategies of the intervention

Even though we are still working on our practical project, we have to start thinking and planning ahead for how we think about intervene with the public. I think we still would like to screen the slideshow onto a building. But getting the right equipment and plan the dates of screening might take some time so we should get started as soon as possible and work with it alongside the development of the project itself. We need to find a buildning to screen it on and a building to screen it from. We also need a decent projector. The sound is also a problem in need of beeing solved. I came across a site called mobmov (short for Mobile Movie), which is an Internet based movement that started in the U.S in 2004, for people who likes the concept of drive-in movies. People can sign up to get info about the where and when the screenings will be and all they have to do then is to show up in a car equipped with a radio, at the announced spot, often in parkinglots next to a wall suitable for screening. The projector and the FM transmitter is placed in one of the cars.
This is interesting to our project. I don't know how it works yet but if it would be possible to get a FM transmitter this could be the way to get people the best chance of hearing the sound recordings. The photos can hopefully work for themselves but if people want to engage more I thought maybe (?) hopefully (!) they can tune the frequency in on their mp3 players, if it has got a radio receiver. I really don't know much about this, but I am trying to find out more about it since it woold be a nice thing to do. If it is possible to do technically I hope it's not gonna cost too much to go through with. So if you read this and have knowledge about the matter please let me know!!